Are Forklift Close Calls the Precursor to an Accident?

Forklift close calls are another way of saying that the forklift almost hit a pedestrian or almost struck an object. Many people take a deep sigh of relief when it comes to forklift close calls. That’s because the accident didn’t happen! Right! Well, maybe there’s more to a forklift close call. What if a forklift close call is a precursor to an accident…a fatality or damage? Do you feel that sigh of relief now? Probably not.

The Experience of a Close Call

Forklift close calls occur every day. It can be something as simple as ‘almost’ spilling a glass of water on the table, or it can be ‘almost’ spilling a glass of water across the keyboard that’s sitting on the table. The first one has a potential low-level impact, and the other has a potential high-level impact on the situation. I bet you saw dollar signs. One doesn’t cost anything, but the other can cost you a few thousand dollars for the ‘almost’.

Are Forklift Close Calls Important to Track?

Without the technology that can automatically identify and track ‘near misses’, safety managers will need to train operators on how to recognize near-misses. It’s easy to identify what is an incident or an accident, but near misses are harder to distinguish. However, they are very important to a safety manager as they didn’t know that there was a risk developing in the facility.

How Can a Forklift Close Call be Tracked?

The probability of a forklift operator knowing when to identify a near miss and report it is rather low.  Not that they don’t want to assist, but everyone’s interpretation may be different, or forget to report it or some other reason. That’s why the SIERA.AI S3 Pedestrian Detection is key. It comes with near miss tracking, along with other tracking metrics. The technology is consistent in its identification of near-misses. It doesn’t overlook a ‘near-miss’. This is important if you want to be able to do some analysis on a near-miss.

What Can You Find Out About a Near-Miss?

Now that you can capture the information, let’s understand what you can find out about a near miss. Access to the telemetry Dashboard will give you the information you need on near-misses. First, you’ll know how many occurred during any given period of time. Next you will get numbers on how many near misses were pedestrians, and how many near misses were objects.

Let’s take pedestrians for example. You can simply click to understand the following:

• The worksite, truck and/or forklift driver
• How many feet was the near miss (6.33 feet or 2.07 feet)
• The date and time of each near miss
• Where within the facility did the near miss occur

Identifying the ‘Hot Spot’

By analyzing the information, you can now determine and identify the ‘hot spot’. Is it a particular location? Is there a particular problem with a forklift that nobody knew existed? Is it the overnight crew or the morning crew that’s experiencing more near-misses? And many more questions that you’ll be able to answer.

However, once you do identify the answer, it’s time to go to work and change the surroundings of the near miss. That’s the beauty of near-miss tracking and analysis. You can now alter the fate of an accident. You’re reducing the risk which will save a person’s life, injuries and customer or facility damage. Not a bad day’s work.

To Do

Your next ‘to do’ is to contact us at sales@siera.ai. Let’s get a SIERA.AI S3 on your forklift truck so you can find out what a near-miss is. Just get one and be sure the forklift is used. Once you track the results for just a week, you’ll be buying a forklift safety system for each forklift truck. Let’s get started.